Virgin: Ballooning Across the Pacific

Richard Branson continues his weekly releases of animated short stories as part of his 'Adventure Series', produced by Paper Sky Films, with his fourth addition: "Ballooning Across the Pacific." In 1991, Branson and his long-time ballooning buddy Per Lindstrand, embarked on their second ballooning odyssey, with the intention of flying from Japan to California. But their record-breaking journey didn’t quite go according to plan. Paper Sky Films teamed up with Virgin in 2021 to create twelve animated short films, each telling individual stories following Richard Branson’s adventures. Setting a distance record of 6,700 miles, it took Richard and Per 48 hours altogether to fly from Japan to Canada. The pair broke the previous hot air balloon distance record of 3,072 miles, set during their Atlantic crossing in 1987 (which, was also told through an animated short film, released a few weeks ago.) Told with a mixture of traditional 2D animation and stylised ‘diagram’ artwork, the Paper Sky Films team found a creative way of telling the story where their options to show what was happening felt somewhat limited.